Tag: Frances Burney

Nothing New Under the Sun

Published on by emmaclairesweeney1 Comment

When Emily and I set up Something Rhymed, we were keen to find out whether Jane Austen enjoyed the support of a fellow writer. Perhaps she got to know Frances Burney or Maria Edgeworth, older authors whom we knew she admired. Sadly, we found no evidence of her meeting either of these novelists. But, in the pages of Claire Tomalin’s biography of Austen, we came across a fleeting reference to a rather more surprising literary friend: Anne Sharp, a governess employed by Austen’s brother, who penned plays in between teaching lessons.

Among the thousands of books about Britain’s favourite author, we felt sure that another biographer or academic would have delved deeper into the history of this unexpected relationship. After ploughing through every single book on Austen in Senate House Library, however, we discovered only a little more. Ever optimistic, we cast around for monographs, journal articles and papers delivered at the annual Austen society conferences. Again, we came across only a few more morsels of knowledge.

Finally, we consulted the surviving letters and diaries of Austen, her family and friends. We didn’t honestly expect to find much in these papers since most of them have already been scoured over by Austen experts. There surely couldn’t be anything new to say about a novelist on whom millions of pages had already been written.

But, much to our surprise, we found a cache of unpublished material that contains plenty of references to Sharp. And even the well-consulted documents reveal far more about this transgressive friendship than we could have predicted: a story full of rebellion and subterfuge.

Shining a light on the hidden web of female literary friendship. Creative Commons License.
Playing the part of literary detectives, we worked out that Austen’s family disapproved of the friendship between employer and employee. What’s more, we began to suspect that Austen had gone behind the backs of her relatives – putting her friend’s needs above their wishes.

We plan in the future to write in greater detail about this defining moment in their friendship, and our quest to uncover it. But here’s a potted history of our version of events:

Two years into her employment at Godmersham Park, Sharp began to receive unwanted advances from Austen’s brother. The governess risked divulging this information to her friend in the hope that Austen might put their bond above her sisterly loyalty.

Together, the women hatched a plan. Austen secretly wrote a reference for Sharp to help her get a job elsewhere. The governess told her employer that ill-health prevented her from continuing to work – a story that no one overtly questioned despite Sharp immediately taking up an equivalent post elsewhere. But Austen’s sister-in-law must have smelt something fishy since she later recruited an elderly widow to replace the young, attractive Sharp.

Despite the Austen family’s resistance, the friendship between the two writers endured. And Austen even managed to persuade her mother and sister to welcome Sharp into their home for extended visits. We were particularly taken by the community of women that Austen battled to create, because ever since setting up Something Rhymed we too have felt grateful to belong to a sisterhood of readers and writers – albeit online.

I must admit that, back when we set up this site, I was rather sceptical about whether friendships could really be forged in cyberspace. The warm sense of support and lively exchange we’ve enjoyed with so many of you from around the globe – people who were strangers just eighteen months ago – has caused me to rethink this assumption.

When Emily won the Lucy Cavendish Prize, for instance, one of the unexpected joys of her success was getting to share it with all of you. Neither of us could have realised just how much the online celebrations would deepen the joy we’d both felt at the awards ceremony. But perhaps it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that our site dedicated to friendship should have extended our own circle of friends.

Frances Burney and Hester Thrale

Published on by emmaclairesweeney4 Comments

When Emily met John Mullan at the Bloomsbury Institute, he suggested that we investigate the friendship between Frances Burney and Hester Thrale. We soon discovered a story full of intrigue and betrayal.

On a summer’s evening in 1778, Frances Burney’s father took her to Hester Thrale’s literary salon at Streatham Park. The grand occasion would have been intimidating indeed for the shy twenty-six-year-old writer, whose identity had only recently been revealed.

Burney had penned her novel, Evelina, at the dead of night and then audaciously published it anonymously without her parents’ consent. When her music-teacher father finally discovered its authorship, however, he astounded his daughter by not only giving his blessing but fizzing with such pride that he divulged the secret to his friend and employer, Hester Thrale.

A painting of Hester Thrale in 1771 by John Singleton Copley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
A painting of Hester Thrale in 1771 by John Singleton Copley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
London’s literati flocked to Thrale’s gatherings, attracted by the thirty-nine-year-old hostess’s wealth, ebullience, arrogance and wit. Thrale was delighted to introduce her friends to the mysterious author of the novel that was causing such a stir.

Thrale had literary ambitions of her own. She would go on to write a popular history book that failed to win over critics of the day but is now considered a radical pre-cursor to feminism, and she was a consummate memoirist, letter-writer and diarist. Perhaps envy soured Thrale’s pen that summer’s night in 1778 when she jotted in her journal that Burney’s ‘Conversation would be more pleasing if She thought less of herself’. Or perhaps fame really had gone to the young author’s head for a while. Either way, Thrale did admit that Burney’s ‘Merit cannot as a Writer be controverted’.

Despite Thrale’s mixed first impressions, she nonetheless welcomed Burney into her home, inviting her first for a weeklong visit and later for several months on end. Over the next six years, the pair forged an intense bond cemented by their shared wit and storytelling flair.

‘Irresistible Burney!’ Thrale wrote in one of her daily letters: ‘and who was ever like you for warm affection, cool Prudence, and steady Friendship!’ But this same ‘cool Prudence’, which Thrale once so admired, ended up causing a great rift between the two authors.

During her husband’s final illness, Thrale confessed to Burney her growing tenderness towards one of the musicians she employed: an impoverished Italian singer called Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Thrale felt determined that, after the death of her spouse, she would finally secure a love match.

Although Burney’s own father was a music teacher from a similar social milieu to Piozzi, she was horrified by the thought of her friend marrying a Catholic foreigner of lower social rank, and by what she saw as the emotional and financial abandonment of Thrale’s children. ‘Think a little’, Burney pleaded. ‘The mother of 5 children, 3 of them as Tall as herself, will never be forgiven for shewing so great an ascendance of passion over Reason’.

Thrale married Piozzi in 1784. From then on, Burney’s letters went unanswered and she was no longer welcome at the home of her former friend.

Frances Burney circa. 1784 painted by Edward Francisco Burney (1760-1848) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Frances Burney circa. 1784 painted by Edward Francisco Burney (1760-1848) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
During the next thirty years and more, Burney ‘made every possible overture’ of friendship but Thrale, now Signora Piozzi, could no longer trust the woman she referred to as ‘l’aimable Traitesse’. But her name did continue to appear on the subscription list for Burney’s novels, as, indeed, did that of the young Jane Austen – an ardent fan.

Burney’s persistence may well have been motivated by an increased empathy with her former friend’s predicament. At the age of forty-one, Burney defied her father by marrying a penniless French Catholic and becoming known as Madame D’Arblay.

In 1817, Burney, now sixty-six, dared to call in on the seventy-five-year-old Thrale. ‘At the sound of my name’, Burney wrote immediately afterwards, ‘she came hastily from her Boudoir to receive me in the grand sallon’. But Thrale, suffering from asthma, was so embarrassed and agitated that she could not utter a single word.

Once she recovered, they sat together on a sofa and entered into a political debate. Though spirited, their conversation lacked the affection of old. And yet, they talked on as night fell, quite forgetting about dinner. When Burney finally realised the time and made to leave, Thrale affectionately thanked her for calling in. ‘Much surprised, & instantly touched,’ wrote Burney, ‘I turned back, & held out my hand. She gave me hers, & each hand again pressed the other’. And this late-life reconciliation endured.

Activity

Burney and Thrale often surprised each other. This month, we’ll take the opportunity to reflect on the unexpected things we have learnt while working together on Something Rhymed.